External Hard Drive

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steve

I know this isn't the place to ask but I'd appreciate any opinions on
a Vaio external hard drive(10 gb). Thanks
 
I know this isn't the place to ask but I'd appreciate any opinions on
a Vaio external hard drive(10 gb). Thanks
Click to expand...


Can't vouch for the brand.

However, my 2 Cents would be a 10 Gb hdd is kinda small.

My recommendations would be do as I did.

Get yourself a 60 or 80 Gb hdd, (mine's an 80) partition as
2 drives, format it, and slap it into an external hdd
enclosure. Same end result as an external hard drive, but
cheaper.

As for the merits of external storage, I recommend it
highly. You can back up to it almost instantly, and when you
want to format/reinstall your hard drive, you just turn off
the external drive.

I've reformatted my main drive a dozen times since I've had
my external drive, and all I do is turn it off, partition,
format, install, and turn it back on. That way, once my OS
is installed, some 90 % of my install software is on my
backup drive, and ready to go with a couple of mouse clicks.


Hope that helps.

Good luck!


Tallahassee
 
thanks for your help

Can't vouch for the brand.

However, my 2 Cents would be a 10 Gb hdd is kinda small.

My recommendations would be do as I did.

Get yourself a 60 or 80 Gb hdd, (mine's an 80) partition as
2 drives, format it, and slap it into an external hdd
enclosure. Same end result as an external hard drive, but
cheaper.

As for the merits of external storage, I recommend it
highly. You can back up to it almost instantly, and when you
want to format/reinstall your hard drive, you just turn off
the external drive.

I've reformatted my main drive a dozen times since I've had
my external drive, and all I do is turn it off, partition,
format, install, and turn it back on. That way, once my OS
is installed, some 90 % of my install software is on my
backup drive, and ready to go with a couple of mouse clicks.


Hope that helps.

Good luck!


Tallahassee
Click to expand...
 
Finally, Someone who knows something about hardrives. Talahasee,try this. Go
buy two 37 Gig. WD Raptures 10.000 RPM's. Mirror & Stripe them, they then run
as one harddrive serial#and all. Only the data is transfered to the second
drive. This then give's you a harddrive speed of 20,000 RPM.s. Then use your
larger harddrives for additional storage or multiboots. And i don't mean
duel. I am currently
running,WINXP,XP64,Linspire,(Linux)Suse10.0,(UNIX)B.S.D.and Xandros Business
on two harddrives. Technically (3) The two Raptures,and one 300 gig
Maxtor,partitioned to 12 drives. Linux and Unix run on non active or Logical
drives.
Maybe a future project.Respectfully: Woz
 
I bought an 250 GB Iomega external hard drive last month and cloned my
little 30 GB system using Acronis True Image. It took about two hours
to clone. I've tried to research how to do things like this but I'm
really busy with my two little boys, 8 months old and almost 3 years
old. I'm curious about a couple things you said. One is the
partitioning. When I cloned my system the Acronis software made two
partitions on the Iomega just like my hard drive. The extra partition
is for recovery and I've since learned that I don't need that extra
recovery partition because Acronis made an exact clone of my system. An
Acronis techie told me that (after I did the cloning). Why do you
partition? To put the recovery partition back on your hard drive?

Also, when you say "a couple of mouse clicks" do you mean that you copy
and paste the contents of your external hard drive over to your newly
formatted and partitioned main drive? How long does it take to complete?

I used to format and reinstall my Windows 98 a couple times a year way
back when and I miss doing that. We've had this "new" Gateway computer
for a year now and I would like to reformat it. I know it's cluttered
up even though it's running fine.

Could you explain these things to me?
 
Sam said:
I bought an 250 GB Iomega external hard drive last month and cloned my
little 30 GB system using Acronis True Image. It took about two hours
to clone.
Click to expand...

What a WASTE of such a large drive.

You'd be better off to partition that external drive, and to use
Acronis True Image to make an image of your current drive in one of the
partitions.

In my own case, my main drive is an 80GB, I have a second internal of
30GB, and a 120GB external.

I clone the main drive weekly to the second internal drive, and use the
external drive for images, and other things (five partitions).
 
Uncle said:
What a WASTE of such a large drive.

You'd be better off to partition that external drive, and to use
Acronis True Image to make an image of your current drive in one of the
partitions.

In my own case, my main drive is an 80GB, I have a second internal of
30GB, and a 120GB external.

I clone the main drive weekly to the second internal drive, and use the
external drive for images, and other things (five partitions).
Click to expand...

It was on sale.

I don't understand why you say I'm wasting it. I intend to keep on
filling it up. What I want to do is save all the images and documents
for my children to have 20 years from now.

I'm trying to figure out what partitioning really does. Seems like a
partition is just like a large file. If my hard drive fails, all the
partitions fail, correct?

True Image made two partitions even though I didn't ask it to. It made
an exact copy of my computer. You suggest partitioning my external
drive. What should I do with the extra partitions?

Another question I have is, when you clone each week, do you erase the
previous clone first?

Thanks for replying.
 
Sam said:
It was on sale.

I don't understand why you say I'm wasting it. I intend to keep on
filling it up. What I want to do is save all the images and documents for
my children to have 20 years from now.

I'm trying to figure out what partitioning really does. Seems like a
partition is just like a large file. If my hard drive fails, all the
partitions fail, correct?

True Image made two partitions even though I didn't ask it to. It made an
exact copy of my computer. You suggest partitioning my external drive.
What should I do with the extra partitions?

Another question I have is, when you clone each week, do you erase the
previous clone first?

Thanks for replying.
Click to expand...


Sam:
First of all, it's fine to use your USB external HD as a storage device,
including cloning the contents of your internal HD to that USBEHD for backup
purposes. Understand that when you use a disk imaging program such as
Acronis True Image to perform the cloning operation whatever prior contents
were on the USBEHD will be replaced by the new clone. This is an automatic
process - you need not "erase" the previous cloned contents on that drive.

With the relative costs of large-capacity HDs so low these days, there's
certainly no major negative in having a 250 GB HD as your external HD. I
suppose it's reasonable to assume that by & by you'll be replacing your 30
GB internal HD with a considerably larger one, so the now-extra capacity of
your external drive will certainly come in handy at some future date.

Now as to the clone you created...

Why it took two hours to perform the cloning operation I don't know. You
didn't indicate the volume of data on your source disk, but assuming you
were cloning, for example, 20 GB of data, it shouldn't have taken you more
than an hour, if that. (I'm assuming your computer has USB 2.0 capability as
I'm certain your USB device has). With a "modern" machine, i.e., processor &
HDs, cloning speed in this instance should be about 400 to 450 MB/min.

A clone is a clone is a clone. When you make a direct disk-to-disk clone as
you apparently did, whatever partitions that are on your source disk will be
cloned to the destination disk. So if your USBEHD has two partitions
following the cloning operation, then your internal (source) drive contains
two partitions. Is it possible that your computer is an OEM machine and
contains a so-called "recovery" partition placed there by the manufacturer?

There is really no need to manually partition your USBEHD if your basic
objective is to use that device solely as a simple recipient of the cloned
contents of your internal (source) HD. If, however, for one reason or
another you determine that another partition would be useful on that
external drive for some sort of ancillary storage capability, then you are
free to create that partition. But there's a problem in doing so with the
ATI program (at least with the version 8 program - I don't know if there's
any difference with the newer version 9 edition). Based on my experience
with that program, ATI will not allow partition-to-partition cloning, at
least with respect to *direct* disk-to-disk cloning operations. It's an "all
or nothing" proposition in the sense that when you clone the contents of
your internal HD to your USBEHD, whatever partitions that were previously
created on the external drive will be deleted as I mentioned above. There
are some disk imaging programs that have the capability to clone on a
partition-to-partition basis but to the best of my knowledge the ATI program
does not provide this capability.

As to your question "If my hard drive fails, all the partitions fail,
correct?", you bet they do.

You're most certainly on the right track in terms of using a disk imaging
program to clone the contents of your internal working HD as a systematic
and effective backup tool.

Retry the cloning process and see if it you're still experiencing problems
with the untoward amount of time it's taking to complete the process. If
you're still having problems let us know, and provide details about your
computer, operating system, how you're undertaking the process, etc. and
we'll see if we can help you.
Anna
 
Anna said:
Sam:
First of all, it's fine to use your USB external HD as a storage device,
including cloning the contents of your internal HD to that USBEHD for backup
purposes. Understand that when you use a disk imaging program such as
Acronis True Image to perform the cloning operation whatever prior contents
were on the USBEHD will be replaced by the new clone. This is an automatic
process - you need not "erase" the previous cloned contents on that drive.

With the relative costs of large-capacity HDs so low these days, there's
certainly no major negative in having a 250 GB HD as your external HD. I
suppose it's reasonable to assume that by & by you'll be replacing your 30
GB internal HD with a considerably larger one, so the now-extra capacity of
your external drive will certainly come in handy at some future date.

Now as to the clone you created...

Why it took two hours to perform the cloning operation I don't know. You
didn't indicate the volume of data on your source disk, but assuming you
were cloning, for example, 20 GB of data, it shouldn't have taken you more
than an hour, if that. (I'm assuming your computer has USB 2.0 capability as
I'm certain your USB device has). With a "modern" machine, i.e., processor &
HDs, cloning speed in this instance should be about 400 to 450 MB/min.

A clone is a clone is a clone. When you make a direct disk-to-disk clone as
you apparently did, whatever partitions that are on your source disk will be
cloned to the destination disk. So if your USBEHD has two partitions
following the cloning operation, then your internal (source) drive contains
two partitions. Is it possible that your computer is an OEM machine and
contains a so-called "recovery" partition placed there by the manufacturer?

There is really no need to manually partition your USBEHD if your basic
objective is to use that device solely as a simple recipient of the cloned
contents of your internal (source) HD. If, however, for one reason or
another you determine that another partition would be useful on that
external drive for some sort of ancillary storage capability, then you are
free to create that partition. But there's a problem in doing so with the
ATI program (at least with the version 8 program - I don't know if there's
any difference with the newer version 9 edition). Based on my experience
with that program, ATI will not allow partition-to-partition cloning, at
least with respect to *direct* disk-to-disk cloning operations. It's an "all
or nothing" proposition in the sense that when you clone the contents of
your internal HD to your USBEHD, whatever partitions that were previously
created on the external drive will be deleted as I mentioned above. There
are some disk imaging programs that have the capability to clone on a
partition-to-partition basis but to the best of my knowledge the ATI program
does not provide this capability.

As to your question "If my hard drive fails, all the partitions fail,
correct?", you bet they do.

You're most certainly on the right track in terms of using a disk imaging
program to clone the contents of your internal working HD as a systematic
and effective backup tool.

Retry the cloning process and see if it you're still experiencing problems
with the untoward amount of time it's taking to complete the process. If
you're still having problems let us know, and provide details about your
computer, operating system, how you're undertaking the process, etc. and
we'll see if we can help you.
Anna
Click to expand...

Wow, Anna, thanks so much for your kind and information-packed response.

I have a 160 GB internal hard drive. It is a 2005 Gateway, with USB
2.0, and it came with a recovery partition D: My complete clone was 34
GB. I don't need to clone the recovery partition, right? Also, with
250 GB on the external, can't I rename the cloned partitions and then
clone again? Sort of like having complete restore points on the external?

Wikipedia says: "It is recommended to create multiple partitions or use
multiple hard drives with the operating system stored on one partition
and with the rest of the partitions and/or drives allocated to
applications and data."

That sounds a bit confusing but I believe I understand that I could
create a 40 GB partition and keep all my digital images there and it
would be easy to access them by simply opening up that partition with
XP, right? When wiki says 'applications' I'm guessing they mean things
like programs I've downloaded? It is interesting that they suggest
separating the applications and data from the operating system - why is
this?

I thought cloning was the best I could do, but I think that I can tell
True Image to back up only the new files or changed files instead of the
whole thing. I understand backing up is different than cloning. The
Iomega External came with Back Up Pro, also. I wish I had more time to
research these things. I hope to have more time when the boys are a
little bit older. The most important thing to me is that I have cloned
my computer finally. I had been losing sleep worried about my computer
failing and losing all those pix. I was saving them every now and then
to DVD but that's Once I get a very large volume of pix and documents
I'm going to remove the clone from the EHD and fill it up with the pix
and videos and then pack it away for the boys to open in twenty years.
They should be able to examine a hard drive in twenty years, don't you
think?

Thank you for your advice.
 
I'm trying to figure out what partitioning really does. Seems like a
partition is just like a large file.
Click to expand...

A partition is a large section of your hard drive that the operating
system will assign a "drive letter" to. So what you see in your
computer as your "C:" drive is in fact a partition. That partition may
use the entire disk, or just a part of it. And there may be several
partitions on a disk, all or some of which have been assigned "drive
letters" in your computer.
If my hard drive fails, all the partitions fail, correct?
Click to expand...

Depends on exactly what went wrong. If a single track or cylinder
developed a problem, other partitions may still be readable. For that
matter, some files on the affected partition may be readable. If the
bad track is the one holding the partition table, then you may need to
call in a data recovery company and give them $$$$$. If you've gotten
a huge power surge through the machine that melted the whole disk,
then the whole disk is toast.
 
Sam said:
Wow, Anna, thanks so much for your kind and information-packed response.

I have a 160 GB internal hard drive. It is a 2005 Gateway, with USB 2.0,
and it came with a recovery partition D: My complete clone was 34 GB. I
don't need to clone the recovery partition, right? Also, with 250 GB on
the external, can't I rename the cloned partitions and then clone again?
Sort of like having complete restore points on the external?

Wikipedia says: "It is recommended to create multiple partitions or use
multiple hard drives with the operating system stored on one partition and
with the rest of the partitions and/or drives allocated to applications
and data."

That sounds a bit confusing but I believe I understand that I could create
a 40 GB partition and keep all my digital images there and it would be
easy to access them by simply opening up that partition with XP, right?
When wiki says 'applications' I'm guessing they mean things like programs
I've downloaded? It is interesting that they suggest separating the
applications and data from the operating system - why is this?

I thought cloning was the best I could do, but I think that I can tell
True Image to back up only the new files or changed files instead of the
whole thing. I understand backing up is different than cloning. The
Iomega External came with Back Up Pro, also. I wish I had more time to
research these things. I hope to have more time when the boys are a
little bit older. The most important thing to me is that I have cloned my
computer finally. I had been losing sleep worried about my computer
failing and losing all those pix. I was saving them every now and then to
DVD but that's Once I get a very large volume of pix and documents I'm
going to remove the clone from the EHD and fill it up with the pix and
videos and then pack it away for the boys to open in twenty years. They
should be able to examine a hard drive in twenty years, don't you think?

Thank you for your advice.
Click to expand...


Sam:
OK. Sorry I misrepresented the size of your internal HD. Somehow I had the
mistaken impression it was only 30 GB. Anyway, glad to hear it's 160 GB.

My advice is not to be unduly concerned with cloning your recovery
partition. It's fine to do so and it might come in very handy at some future
date should you need to restore your system. It surely takes up very little
disk capacity and poses no problem re the disk cloning process. In sum,
continue exactly what you're doing now -- clone the full contents of your
day-to-day internal working HD to your USBEHD. Do this on a systematic &
routine basis and you'll be fine.

I really would not be concerned with creating multi-partitions either on
your internal or external HDs at this point. As long as you continue (as I
have emphasized) routine & systematic cloning of your system you will have
an ample supply of security and your day to day computer operations will be
just fine. As you gain more & more knowledge re using your PC it's possible
that for one reason or another you may want to multi-partition your
drive(s). But for now my advice is not to do so.

No, I would not trust retrieving data from a HD twenty years from now.
That's asking too much. While the HD can be used for relatively short
periods of time to store data, such as the way you're now using that device,
it is simply not designed as a long-term repository of data. There *might*
be no problem in accessing data from a twenty-year-old HD, but it is simply
too risky to contemplate. So please do not look upon a HD to be used in that
fashion.

The better course of action is to archive those (irreplaceable) documents &
photos so that they can be accessed in future years - perhaps many years
from now - by copying those items on removable media such as CDs and/or
DVDs. And it would be wise to make continuing generational copies of those
items every year or so. By that I mean you would make multiple copies of
those items, in effect, backups of backups.
Anna
 
Also, with the cost of USB Thumb (Flash Memory) drives, I'm now
recommending customers purchase a small size one and place financial
and other documents on one for storage in their bank's safety deposit
box. CD/DVD-R(W)s are fine expect that most lock boxes will not
accommodate their size, unless you use one of the Mini style disks.
 
R. McCarty said:
Also, with the cost of USB Thumb (Flash Memory) drives, I'm now
recommending customers purchase a small size one and place financial
and other documents on one for storage in their bank's safety deposit
box. CD/DVD-R(W)s are fine expect that most lock boxes will not
accommodate their size, unless you use one of the Mini style disks.
Click to expand...


R. McCarty:
We've recommended the same as well, but for relatively short-time backup
purposes. We've run into so many problems with defective memory drives that
become inoperable for reason or another we're reluctant to recommend them
for long-term archival storage purposes.
Anna
 
Thanks for the empirical data. Unfortunately, there is no "Real" long
term solution - other than having multiple copies/media of data. I've
seen way too many optical backups that are not useable and try to
get users to actually copy data back from them to the disk as a sort
of sanity check before storing them away. I'm afraid we are adopting
a digital lifestyle without proper safeguards for data recovery.
 
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